1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus, particularly to the imaging apparatus which can transfer photographed image data to an external device.
2. Related Background Art
Various imaging apparatuses having a moving image photographing function have been proposed and already become commercially practical. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-352510, one of those imaging apparatuses is disclosed.
Devices, which store moving image data in a memory such as RAM and ROM or a memory card such as a compact flash (CF) card to which the memory is applied, are also known.
The photographed digital moving image data can be simply captured in a personal computer (PC) by inserting the memory cars into other information equipment such as PC or by wire or wireless communicating means.
Since the moving image can be saved as the digital data by using the imaging apparatus having the moving image photographing function, in order to record various events or to make a moving image document, the imaging apparatus having the moving image photographing function is widely utilized for home and business.
However, in the imaging apparatus having the moving image photographing function, there is the following problem.
Since the memory for storing the moving image data has a finite storage capacity, when free space of the memory has run out during photographing the moving image, there happens a situation in which the photographing moving image is interrupted halfway through a task.
Particularly, in the imaging apparatus in which a still image photographing function is mainly designed, the capacity of the mounted storing means tends to be decreased, so that this problem is significant.
For example, in order to solve the above-described problem, when the plurality of memory cards are used one after another, there appears a part where the continuous moving image is interrupted. Further, the plurality of memory cards store separately the moving image files, and the moving image data can not be saved in the form of one image file, so that there is the problem that this method lacks user-friendliness.
With respect to a still image, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-128113, when the free space of the memory is lessened, image information is transferred to another storage device. However, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-128113, it is not assumed that the photographing is performed during transferring the image data. Since the photographing can not be performed during transferring the image data, this method can not deal with the above-described problem.